Still messing with style and design, but this is the fun of the project. I think the brush and shading technique I'm using is a little ... messy at the moment. I like a loose style, but I don't want it to look dirty.

My friend is visiting for Memorial Day weekend, and he mentioned that with a screw that long the next scene should be a blood splattered dress. What do you guys think?

So enjoy! Next update should be next weekend, continuing as usual. If there's going to be another hiccup like last weekend, I'll be sure to give ya'll a heads up.

Nah, I'd hate to see that dress get ruined. She managed to get free of her bondage, so let's at least get see the dress go untarnished for as long as possible. However, seeing her threaten him with a screw and being effective with it would be hilarious!

wow you gave samus some cute lipstick makeup! so cute!! ^__^ now she really looks like a adorable princess <3! great job heart ^_^! she's look more like princess peach but only tougher XD! And dont bloody her dress >O< ;-; it would ruin her beautiful royal image

I suppose the obvious question is why is there a screw lying around at the bottom of the cage?

Personally, I hope it's not that simple to escape Bowser's dungeon, otherwise we spent four pages getting her into the cage only to have her escape in two. But there's still the Chekhov's Gun of the "Third Law" to keep things interesting, so I'm still intrigued.

Personally, I don't think there should be a blood-stained anything in the Mario world. It's not a bloody place and you've never seen anyone bleed in any of the games. Since this is a piece of metafiction, I think it's only fair to stay consistent with the internal rules of the game worlds.

While I don't see a screw would be an effective way to lockpick a cage, I can simply accept that this thing is running on "video-game logic" and when it looks like a lockpick in 8 or 16 bit, it works like one. And even it it doesn't look like one, it will work.

A slighly thinner screw would've probably looked better.

For the question - um... I think, that would be a bad idea. Just let Samus stomp on the Koopa and throw the poor guy in the cage - or let him run away comedically.Either way, no serious combat (at least in that dress) and defenetly no blood.A bloodless carnage looks better, anyway.

Well that turned out to be a lot simpler escape from the cage than I had imagined. Samus's head-shot in panel two looks gorgeous but I think the sentry's expressions steal the show. Panel 3 in particular.

I'm torn on the bloody dress idea. On the one hand, making a bloody mess of everything seems like too much of a stretch in the Mario World, even if the world is portrayed more realistically. If it's played up as an exaggerated joke (something like the Sonic rings on Rex in Material Girl) for a single panel/page it might work out alright but having it specifically happen as a canon action feels like it might be going in too dark of a direction. That, and I can't imagine there being many opportunities to wash the blood out of the dress so it would probably end up being there for the rest of the comic.

I also don't really want to see our poor sentry get killed. Yes, he has been pretty much asking for it over the last two pages but he has a character now. He's not just a drone Koopa like all the others and it seems like such a shame to throw him away. On the other hand, if he is going to live through this attack then giving him a scar or an eye-patch (horrific implications aside) would help differentiate him as his own character from the other masses of Koopas.

Yea.. Samus could kick bowser's ass anytime. Bowser is a mutated turtle, while samus is.. Like what.. Mutated three times over, lived as a bounty hunter all her life, had extensive training since childhood, etc.. It's not a matter of if she can kick his butt. It's a matter of when she'll kick his butt.Fucking turtle.. ;O!1one

Well... Yeah, to a point. But remember, Bowser has all sorts of magical badness up his sleeve too, and this is effectively Zero Suit Samus, so she's only got a bit more going for her than the Mario Bros in the offensive department.

To be honest, I'm not as worried about Bowser versus Samus... Bowser isn't all that agile, and even his magic is limited. It's all Bowser's minions who are sort of scary. I'd hate to see what Kami-koopa would do to someone if she didn't have the idiot version of Bowser telling her what to do... and in this one it didn't look like that particular Bowser XD

You're forgetting an important thing : Peach doesn't mind getting captured. She might let Bowser capture her because he would be more dangerous otherwise. She might let him capture her because she enjoys having tea parties with him. She might even let herself be captured because she knows the Mario brothers will come and rescue her, dealing irreparable damage to Bowser's current plans. She already has proven herself, times and times again, to be able to fight on-par with Mario, or at least to have strong magic. So yeah, a heroine is thougher to hold than a princess. Wether Peach is an heroine or a princess depends on her current mood.

I'm pretty sure she minds, or she wouldn't be asking Mario to save her. I don't think that she looks terribly happy to be in that cage or tied to a poll with a prety ribbon like on Super Mario 3D Land. Not to mention she went well out of her way to wallop Bowser when he got the drop on Mario and Luigi in Super Princess Peach.

The issue is that Peach is too nice/too sweet to keep a grudge against Bowser, which is why he always gets invited to such outings, thinking that maybe he'd lighten up/stop being such a mean Koopa Kidnapper if he actually had something else to do.

And of course, if the worst happens, Mario (& Luigi and maybe some Toads depending on the game) will plow through several worlds to get her back.

Yeah, we have to assume that Peach is generally as caught and well-captured and bound as Samus is. Samus is simply more capable of handling the sitaution; both her and Peach are athletic, but one has combat training and likely experience with escape. The princess, while having experience, likely does not have this kind of knowledge to escape bindings.

Also, it would be fair to assume that Peach getting captured would be distressing. Giant evil turtle trying to take over your world and hurt your hero/friend/potential boyfriend who is there to help you? Gotta say that I'd be pretty distressed too, if the gender roles were reversed or even if the people were reversed like they are here. Also, struggling and squirming in ropes can be rather tense.

What you just said reminds me of an episode of Family Guy... "It's strange, Chris... I've always wanted to see you locked in a basement, but now that you are, I just want to get you out!" I don't know the creepy old dudes name, but it was him that said it. XD